Craig Calcaterra

In which Tiffany has occasion to ask me how old I am. In hindsight I should have said that I was old enough to be her, well, maybe not her father, but probably her uncle. Which is utterly depressing, but there you are.

At this point I’ll offer my usual “man, I wish MLB.com let you embed their videos because it would be awesome to have this circulated to people who think baseball is boring” rant. There, with that out of the way, check out the play Jack Wilson made in last night’s Ms-Rangers game. It’s a double…

Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza were in Las Vegas for a celebrity golf tournament the other day and they did some radio together. Of course, the topic turned to the bat incident from the 2000 World Series. I’d like to say something super interesting happened during the interview, but not really. Here’s Piazza: I saw…

You and I are men of action. Simplistic projections based on small sample sizes do not become us. So please, while there have been a lot of home runs hit in the season’s first five days, let’s not play the “on pace” game. Not yet anyhow. But we can listen to the anecdotes, can’t we?…

Last year there were rumblings — primarily from the Giants, but from others as well — that the Rockies were messing with the baseballs from the humidor at Coors Field, giving their pitchers the deader ones and the opposing pitchers the good old, high-flying dried out balls. Baseball now has a new policy, explained by…

I noted in ATH that Nelson Cruz had homered in four straight games to open the season, but I wasn’t aware that this was a record. According to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, only two others have done that before: Willie Mays in 1971 and Mark McGwire in 1998. Cruz faces Mariners’ rookie…

Sirius/XM radio has what seems to be part of some continuing employment plan for former GMs, and the latest enrollee is former Mets’ GM Steve Phillips. Yes, the man who was fired from the Mets for poor performance, fired from ESPN for shtupping the help and who sat on the deck of AOL FanHouse as…

Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times reports that Frank and Jamie McCourt may settle soon. That’s the good news. The bad news — or, at the very least, the uncertain news — is that the settlement may once again involve a scenario in which part of the payoff to Jamie comes in exchange for Frank…

UPDATE: Judge Susan Illston said in court today that the tape prosecutors claim will rebut the damaging (to the prosecution) testimony of Dr. Arthur Ting is “almost entirely inadmissible or irrelevant.” She added that the contents of the tape “were not very substantive,” and that “almost all of this is people’s comments being driven by what is…

Well, I haven’t seen the order from the judge, but I assume that, seeing it was going to Clemens, it had to contain short, easily readable words. “Zip it” seems to fit the bill: A federal judge is not happy that baseball’s Roger Clemens talked to the media about his upcoming perjury trial. U.S. District…

Each year the company Team Marketing Report puts out a list of who has the highest ticket prices, lowest ticket prices, hot dogs, parking, beers, etc. It’s pretty much what you’d expect: stuff in big cities with big crowds is higher than it is here in the hinterlands. You can check it all out here.…

There’s not a heck of a lot happening this afternoon — that is, unless you (a) have MLB.TV; and (b) are a masochist. If so, you can listen to Chip Caray call the Braves-Brewers game. At least until you realize that you can just switch to the audio feed and listen to Bob Uecker, which…

CBS’ Danny Knobler spoke with a scout who said this about Angels’ starter Scott Kazmir, who gave up five runs in an inning and a third over the weekend: “Terrible. No velocity. No command. No nothing” Quit beatin’ around the bush, man, tell me: how’s he doing? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen…

The incident at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day has led to a lot of discussion about fan safety, but for some people who are familiar with Dodger Stadium, this is not a new problem. Here’s freelancer Paul Oberjuerge: Aside from what appears to be the seriousness of the victim’s injuries, what is new about this?…

There has yet to be a decision by the Cardinals as to whether they will put Matt Holliday on the disabled list in the wake of his appendectomy. He was reported to be feeling better yesterday, so the Cards are taking a wait-and-see approach and, in the meantime, going with a 24-man roster, effectively. ESPN’s…

There was a time from the late 60s through to about the mid-80s when going to the ballpark was an unpleasant and, at times, dangerous experience. Alcohol flowed too freely, security was lax and ticket prices were cheap enough to where people who weren’t particularly invested in baseball games for baseball games’ sake didn’t think…

Well, I’m sure he’s fine, but he watched as two of his marks were surpassed on Saturday. First, David Ortiz set the major league record for RBIs by a designated hitter, passing Martinez’s mark of 1,003. Then, later that night, Ichiro Suzuki broke Edgar Martinez’s franchise record for career hits, notching his 2,248th hit in a Mariners uniform. Both were…

Panic on the streets of Boston … St. Pete, Frisco and Milwaukee … OK, fine, so the Smiths sang about panic better than I can, but the “oh noes!” quotient is pretty high among some fans this morning. Fans who, it seems, forgot that baseball is not football and three or four games don’t really…

We’re going to have a lot of Small Sample Size Theater this week. Stuff we observe during the season’s infancy that, while unsustainable and probably meaningless in the grand scheme of things, is fun to observe all the same. One of the first things that fit this bill in 2011 is the Royals’ relievers, particularly…

Today will be the last day of the prosecution’s case-in-chief in the Barry Bonds trial, as they finish with Don Catlin, the anti-doping expert, and have the grand jury testimony read to the jury. The defense will then start their case, either today or tomorrow, but it will be a shorter deal than the prosecution’s.…

As I noted in ATH this morning, people were talking during yesterday’s Yankees-Tigers game that Phil Hughes‘ velocity was way down. The last time this was mentioned, during spring training, some dismissed the idea as a function of uncalibrated Juggs guns or, even if the observations were accurate, as something not worth worrying about. It…

Royals 12, Angels 9 (13 innings): Fernando Rodney blew the save in the bottom of the ninth by allowing two runs. More inexcusable than the runs, however, is that he walked Jeff Francoeur in the process. Actually, he walked the bases loaded before Wilson Betemit doubled in the tying runs. Angels pitchers walked ten Royals…